Moshe Lavi owns Israel Patent No. 157035 titled “MODULAR SUPPORT BRACKET” which describes a support bracket for an air-conditioner unit. He’s tried to enforce it in the past against Zach Oz Airconditioners LTD, and the parties came to an out-of-court settlement.

Lavi then sued again, and Zach Oz countered by applying to have the patent cancelled. This attempt was unsuccessful and a ruling upholding the patent issued on 5 March 2017.

Lavi then applied for costs under Circular MN 80. According to Lavi and his attorneys, Pearl Cohen Zedek Latzer Brats, the costs incurred in fighting the Opposition were a fairly massive 526,750.058 Shekels!? We assume that there is a typo here, and the costs requested were just over half a million Shekels and not just over half a billion shekels, as that would be ridiculous even for Pearl Cohen. It seems that they charge in dollars and not Shekels, and are unaware of the need to round up to the nearest 5 agarot.

Lavi claims that he is entitled to the real costs incurred, which are reasonable, necessarily incurred and proportional in the circumstances. He accuses Zach Oz of acting in bad faith by challenging the validity of the patent. His counsel appended a list of legal counsel’s hours, invoices, and an affidavit by Moshe Lavi.

The Respondents Zach Oz, confusingly represented by an Adv. Pearl (not Zeev, even he is aware that fighting both sides of an opposition proceeding is not acceptable) claimed that the costs were unreasonable and some were unnecessary or disproportional. They also claimed that it was Moshe Lavi who acted inequitably. They note that the case-law states that costs are not meant to be a punishment, and the costs in this case were unreasonable and were incurred due to unnecessary wariness by the patentee. Furthermore, the adjudicator is supposed to take into account the public interest and importance in maintaining the integrity of the patent register. Awarding inflated costs in cases that they lose, would discourage people from challenging the validity of patents and would prevent access to legal recourse.

Ruling

The winning party is entitled to costs incurred in legal proceedings. However, the arbitrator is not obliged to rule actual costs, and is required to consider the specifics of the case and judicial policy. See paragraph 19 of Appeal 6793/08 Loar LTD vs Meshulam Levinsten Engineering and Subcontracting Ltd. 28 June 2009.

In the case-law it was ruled that for the Applicant for actual costs to prove that they are reasonable, proportional and necessary in the specific circumstances. See Bagatz 891/05 Tnuva Cooperative for Marketing Agricultural Produce in Israel Ltd. et al. vs. The Authority for granting Import licenses et al. p.d. 70(1) 600, 615 from 30 June 2005. The limitation of costs to being necessary and proportional is:

The amount of work invested in preparing submissions, their legal and technical complexity, the stage reached in the proceedings, the behavior of the parties before the court of the patent office and with regard to opposing party, inequitable behavior of the parties, etc. All these are considerations that should be taken into account when considering “the specifics of the case”.

In this instance, the patentee did win his case and is entitled to recoup costs, and the losing party does not dispute this. However, in this instance, the patentee is not entitled to the requested costs for reasons detailed below.

Firstly, after consideration of the case and the submissions, none of the parties appear to have acted inequitably. It is not irrelevant that neither party has related to the decisions made in this instance, including the main ruling. This is because there is no evidence of inequitable behavior by the parties. Similarly the affidavits are acceptable. In this regard, it is not reasonable to accept the patentee’s allegation that the challenge to their patent was baseless. The file wrapper shows that the challenger made a reasonable and fair attempt to show that the patent was void, based, inter alia, on prior art.

Furthermore, as to the costs requested, the adjudicator, Ms Shoshani Caspi did not think that they were reasonable, essential or proportional, as required by the Tnuva ruling.

The expert opinion of the expert who attended the hearing, costs of 29,685 Shekels including VAT were incurred. This was considered reasonable. It also appears to have been necessarily incurred. However, the Applicants did not need to use lawyers to prepare the expert opinion’s opinion for him, whilst claiming costs for him preparing his opinion as well. This is a double request for costs and should be eradicated.

In his Affidavit, Mr Lavi claimed that the challenge to his patent caused him to spend $137,901.37 including VAT. This is the 499,065.058 Shekels requested by the Applicant, excluding the expert opinion. The Affidavit explains that this sum includes his legal counsel’s work, couriers, printing, etc., however, no evidence of couriers and printing costs were given, and it appears that these incidentals were included in the invoices from his legal representative. To provide evidence for the legal costs incurred, invoices from PCZL were appended which included the hours spent by attorneys working on the case.

and other costs that are not essential and thus not reasonably chargeable to the other side.

The attempt to roll these unnecessary costs to the losing side and the double charging for the expert witness are inappropriate to use an understatement, and one assumes that these requests were made inadvertently as they were signed by educated attorneys that are well versed in the relevant legal processes.

Furthermore, after a detailed review of the file, Ms Yaara Shashani Caspi concluded that the case was relatively simple and there were neither particularly complicated legal or factual questions. Consequently, it is difficult to accept that the request for costs of 499,065.058 Shekels [sic] including VAT is reasonable, essential or proportional in the circumstances. It will be noted that as ruled in the Tnuva case (paragraph 19). The real costs that the patentee incurred is only the starting point and not the end point of the costs ruling.

It transpires that the time spent in each round was very large. For example, 65 hours was spent on a request to cancel an expert opinion, and 44 hours on the request for costs, etc. The Applicant did not provide an acceptable justification for these figures.

In light of the above, legal costs will be awarded by estimation, and in addition to the 27,685 Shekels (including VAT) to the expert witness, a further 150,000 Shekels (including VAT) are awarded in legal fees.

The deadline for paying the costs is 30 days, then interest will be incurred.

The whole case was mishandled by Zach Oz, who could and should have won the original infringement case in court, but decided to accept a poorly worded out-of-court settlement. By any reasonable attempt to construe the claims so that the patent was not anticipated by support brackets for shelves, Zach Oz’ supports were not infringing. In other words, they could have used the Gillette defense.

Ms Shoshani Caspi’s criticism of PCZL overcharging and double dipping is appropriate in this instance. The attempt to have the case thrown out on a creative estoppel based on not having challenged the validity of the patent when sued for infringement was ridiculous. Ironically, this patent is not worth the costs spent on litigating it. This is a clear instance of lose-lose by all concerned except the lawyers.

Numerology is any belief in the divine, mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value of the letters in words, names and ideas. It is often associated with the paranormal, alongside astrology and similar divinatory arts.

In gamatriya, each letter of the Hebrew Alphabet is assigned a corresponding number. the first nine letters are numbered 1 to 9, and the next nine are assigned the numbers 10, 20, 30, etc. The final four letters are assigned the values 100, 200, 300, 400.

The word alphabet comes from the Greek Alpha Beta, and the word gamatriya comes from Gamma – t(h)reeya. That said, the Greek alphabet was based on the Hebrew and Phoenician precedents. The Latin letters were derived from the Greek ones.

The issue in question here, is whether copying sections of verbal lectures and publishing them in writing is considered copyright infringement.

In coming to their verdict, the Supreme Court has reviewed the differences between the onld and new, law, what fixation is required and in what circumstnaes a publisher or distributor can be considered as innocently infringing.

The Case

Sharon Ron is a numerology lecturer. In 2002 Ela Shonia attended his numerology course at the Association for Promoting Awareness in Haifa. At the lectures, handouts and exercises were distributed by Ron. In 2003, Shonia and a fellow student called Sarah Vakhnin attended private lessons given by Ron at his home in Kfar Sava.

In 2004, Shonia published a book titled “Numerology for the third millenium” which went to three editions, the last one in 2010. In 2010 Shonia published a second book titled Combined Numerology. Both books were published by Astrologue Publishing LTD.

Mishkal Publishing & Distribution LTD received the rights for both books in 2010, in a deal between Shonia, Astrologue and Mishkal dated 03/02/2010 [I am writing the date in numeric form as it may portend something – MF]. Ron sued Shonia, Astrologue and Mishkal in the Tel Aviv District Court in Appeal 8822/15, and counter Appeal 8822/15. [No doubt these file numbers have some mystical significance-MF].

Where two parties file confusingly similar or identical trademark applications in Israel, such that both are co-pending, a competing marks proceeding ensues under Section 29 of the Trademark Ordinance 1972. More important that who filed first, are the issues of inequitable behavior and the scope of use.

On the same day Drink Point LTD submitted the identical mark for services for providing food and drink; all included in class 43

Then on 9 October 2017, Drink Point LTD submitted an application for the same mark for business management, advertisements and sales promotion (including sale of alcohol); all included in class 35 and on 23 October 2017 Drink Point LTD submitted an application for the stylized mark shown alongside.

On 8 March 2017 Assaf Nakdai and Benny Molayof withdrew their application following a ruling by Judge Cochava Levy of the Tel Aviv – Jaffa Magistrate’s Court. Consequently on 12 March 2017, the Deputy Commissioner terminated the competing marks proceeding and allowed Drink Point’s applications to proceed to examination.

In the ruling, the Deputy Commissioner reiterated the principle that the winning party were entitled to recoup their actual costs. However, she could only consider costs incurred in the competing marks proceeding, not those relating to the court ruling which should be addressed to that court. Furthermore, she was not convinced that Nakdai and Molayof had acted inequitably. The invoices submitted for Drink Point ltd’s lawyer’s fees were not sufficiently detailed to be considered. Therefore, she estimated an appropriate fee for the amount of work performed and ruled 7000 Shekels costs.

Five companies including the Roshen Confectionery Corporation, Dealer B&D International Ltd, Kjarkov Biscuit Factory, Dolina Group Ltd and Latfood Ltd have filed cancellation requests against these marks.

The marks owners have requested that the sum that the challengers are required to post as a guarantee against legal costs in the event that the mark owners prevail be increased by a further 130,000 Shekels, or by whatever sum the commissioner sees fit. The request was submitted together with 90 pages of appendices and a copy of an Affidavit from the legal counsel of the mother company, however the original Affidavit was not submitted. The challengers opposed the request to increase the guarantee. A hearing has been set for the 17th and 18th of January for cross-examining the various witnesses.

The background to the request for guarantees is two requests for cancellation of the marks. Roshen Confectionery Corporation and Dealer B&D International Ltd have requested the cancellation of 184179, 182758 and 182759 trademarks, and the Kjarkov Biscuit Factory, Dolina Group Ltd and Latfood Ltd have requested cancellation of the 182763 mark.

Following requests for guarantees that were filed in March 2015, the Adjudicator of IP Ms Yaara Shshani Caspi ruled on 21 June 2015 as follows:

In light of the above, and considering all the circumstances of this case and the general considerations used to determine the magnitude of the appropriate deposit, the first two challengers are to jointly deposit 75,000 Shekels and the second group of three challengers are also to jointly deposit 75,000 Shekels, and this should be done within 21 days.

The present request includes suspension of the proceedings until the deposit is increased.

The Parties’ Allegations

The mark holder claims that increasing the deposit is required because following the original decision there have been changes in circumstances that warrant increasing the deposit. These new circumstances include the expectation of long and complex proceedings and a number of cross-examinations. Furthermore, the case is complex and it transpires that the costs are expected to be higher than originally anticipated. The additional costs are incurred by the two groups of challengers retaining separate counsel and making unnecessary requests. A further claim is that it was not previous clear but now is transparently so, that there will be a massive amount of evidence and documents and a hearing that will be conducted largely in Russian, requiring simultaneous translation. The mark owners nevertheless reiterate their opinion that the likelihood of challengers prevailing and the marks being cancelled are very slim. The amount of the deposit, standing at 150,000 Shekels, is too low and not proportional to the costs that will be requested if the cancellation attempts fail and so this is a classic example of where increasing the deposit is warranted.

Both group of challengers consider the request to increase the deposit should be refused since the ‘new circumstances’ were already fairly obvious when the original request for costs was made. The second group of challengers considers this to be a vacuous request filed in bad faith simply to stretch out the proceedings.

Ruling

Ms Yaara shoshani Caspi did not consider that the circumstances had changed since the original request for a deposit was ruled on. For example, where there are five parties challenging two groups of marks it is not unpredictable that there will be lots of witnesses to cross-examine. Since the challengers are Russian companies, it was always expected that their witnesses would testify in Russian and simultaneous translation would be needed, as is the fact that there are two groups of challengers. The massive amount of evidence was also expected and Ms Shoshani Caspi considered that these grounds were all considered by her in her original ruling regarding the size of an appropriate deposit.

With regard to the likelihood of the challenges prevailing and the marks being cancelled, there is no way to consider the likelihood or otherwise of the challenges be successful at this stage since the witnesses have not been heard and have not yet been cross-examined. At least this is the theoretical state of affairs. Since the challenges are on the basis of inequitable behaviour in the original filings, there is a high level of proof that the challengers will be required to submit to establish their case since they will have to positively show that many years ago the mark holders intentionally appropriated marks that were not theirs.

Nevertheless, the fact that the challengers have a difficult task ahead is not justification to increase the deposit that they have already placed. There are no unexpected circumstances not considered in the original ruling considering the size of the deposit.

The request to increase the deposit is refused. However, Ms Shoshani Caspi does not see the request as indicative of inequitable behaviour designed to make the trademark cancellation proceedings unnecessarily complicated. that said, the mark owners should nevertheless pay costs to the challengers for requiring them to respond to this request. The mark owners will therefore may 1500 Shekels to the first group of challengers and a further 750 Shekels to the second group and will do so by 15 January 2016 or interest will incur.

The mark was allowed, and then, on 29 May 2016, ARIANDA THALIA SODI MIRANDA, represented by Colb, filed an Opposition.

Talia Bio-Cosmetics LTD engaged Adv. Moshe Goldberg to represent them, and, on 10 July 2016, the Opposition was withdrawn. Then Adv. Goldberg submitted a request for 10,200 NIS costs for 17 hours work spent on the Opposition. The cost request was supported by a detailed list of work done.

The Applicant claimed that the costs requested were exorbitant and unrealistic since the Opposition was withdrawn so early. The Applicant further noted that the request was not accompanied by an Affidavit and alleged that it was insufficiently detailed.

The Deputy Commissioner Ms Jacqueline Bracha noted that Section 69 of the Trademark Ordinance 1972 stated that costs were at the discretion of the Patent Office :

In any hearing before the Commissioner, he is authorized to award the party costs that he considers realistic.

In this instance, the Opposer, by withdrawing the Oppostion, is considered as having lost the proceeding and is obliged to pay costs. See Supreme Court Ruling 891/05 Tnuva Cooperative for Marketing Israeli Produce vs. The Authority for Granting export Licences of the Department of Trade and Industry p.d 60(1) 600 (30 June 2005).

As a matter of principle and as a starting position, the prevailing party is entitled to real costs, i.e. the costs that he has had to lay out. However, this is only the starting position. It is not the end of the matter, since the one sitting in judgement should examiner the costs requested and decide if they are reasonable, proportional and essential,when considering the whole picture. The Attorney’s fees are a relevant but not the only relevant consideration.

The Applicant has requested a rather large costs of 10,700 Shekels for 17 hours work spent on the file. In practice, the Opposer filed an Opposition and then requested an extension for submitting the Statement of Case. The Applicant requested that a bond be paid and also responded to the request for an extension. The Applicant never filed any substantive response since the Opposition proceeding was closed a mere week after it was opened.

Ms Bracha considered the statement of costs sufficiently detailed but nevertheless considered it unreasonable when considering the stage of the proceeding reached, where no statement of case and no evidence had been filed. Consequently she ruled costs of 2000 Shekels to be paid within 21 days.

Exforge is a blockbuster drug sold by Novartis for lowering blood pressure that combines two medications in a film-coated tablet It contains amlodipine, a dihydropyridine-type calcium channel blocker, and valsartan, an angiotensin II receptor antagonist (ARB or A2RA); typically formulated as the benzenesulfonate salt.

Israel Patent Application No. IL 140665 titled “USE OF COMBINATION COMPOSITIONS COMPRISING VALSARTAN AND AMLODIPINE IN THE PREPARATION OF MEDICAMENTS FOR THE TREATMENT AND PREVENTION OF DIABETES ASSOCIATED WITH HYPERTENSION” relates to the drug.

In an Opposition to the Patent Application issuing, the Deputy Commissioner, Ms Jacqueline Bracha, has ruled that the combination of two active ingredients, each individually known for treating high blood pressure, into one pill for ease of dosage is not inherently inventive where the separate efficacy of the active ingredients is known, as are other two component pills for treating hypertension. Though claimed by applicants, there is no evidence of a synergy between the active ingredients. The Patent Application is therefore ruled not patentable in Israel and significant costs were awarded to Teva and Unipharm. We expect that the decision will be appealed. This decision may have a knock on effect regarding patents for the same drug abroad and may encourage Teva to proceed with at-risk launches of generic competitors in other jurisdictions.

In July 2015, Aldi GmbH & Co. KG filed to have the marks cancelled under Section 41 of the Trademark Ordinance, alleging lack of local use.

In response, on 12 October 2015, Studeo Moderna submitted evidence of usage and denied that the mark was not in use. Aldi responded with Affidavits of their personnel and of a private investigator, and argued that the marks were not in use in Israel.

Time passed, and Studeo Moderna took various extensions, but failed to submit evidence. On 7 June 2016 Aldi requested that the Patent and Trademark Office rule on the case based on the material in the file. Studeo Moderna opposed this, claiming the right to cross-examine Aldi’s witnesses.

Commissioner Kling reviewed Regulations 71 and regulations 37 to 46 which relate to an opposer and an applicant, as if they relate to a challenger and a trademark holder and noted that once the challenger has provided evidence, the mark holder was obliged to provide evidence, but the time-frame for so-doing was limited and the deadline had passed. He specifically rejected the implicit position taken by the marks holder, that ONLY if the challenger’s evidence is considered compelling, is the marks holder required to submit counter-evidence on the basis of regulations 38-40 which require the parties to submit their evidence in one go.

According to the Commissioner, an Opposer or a challenger of an issued mark who fails to provide evidence supporting a claim of non-use is considered as withdrawing or abandoning the claim. This is NOT the case for the applicant or mark owner, who, though obliged to provide evidence, is not considered as abandoning his marks if he fails to do so. Since the mark owner has requested to cross-examine the challenger’s witnesses he cannot be considered as having abandoned his marks. The right to cross-examine witnesses is fundamental and is rarely denied. The Commissioner is also obliged to hear the claims of both sides. Consequently, the hearing will go ahead, however the marks owner is warned that he may be laying himself open to high costs of the marks are nevertheless cancelled. The parties are invited to list days that they are available for a hearing in January 2017.